A *different* kind of unbalanced Matchmaking

Hi,
i'm fairly new to WoT and got into the forum just recently. I have read several posts about the unbalanced Matchmaking. This was all about bad selection of tank tiers / SPGs, heavies vs. meds and so on.

What i have found to be unbalanced is that in random battles there are often several (i have seen up to 4) platoons (2ers and 3ers) in one team, where in the other team there was no platoon at all! That means there are 4 groups working together on one side, where on the other side there are only individuals who have to work alone!

I find THIS to be very unbalanced!
The number of players that are organized in platoons should be equal (or nearly equal) on both sides!

Yes, confirmed definately. The partition of the platoons is heavily unbalanced most of the times. Doesn't seem to have any influence on the results however. Regarding my own experiences, I haven't noticed a disadvantage for the less-platooned teams ever. So I stopped taking care about that.

Not sure, but I don't think being in a platoon influences the MM. It just accounts for tank tier, with some weighting for tank class. Having had a match against a team with 6 platoons to zero on mine, I know the feeling.

Should it take platoons into account, probably. But would you be happy with the MM taking longer to get the battle sorted out then? TBH it wouldn't bother me (unless we're talking 10 minutes ).

last night had a match against 4 platoons, in my team we had no platoons, we just covered the entrances to our base and they got hammered by us.
if you fight against platoons you will not allways lose. keep chatting with you,r team m8,s to make a good defence, trust me it works.

Hmm...
honstly i don't understand why you argue for this imbalance being mostly irrelevant. It may be that in some cases it really does not make a difference. But in general - seen statistically - it will. Moreover it's completely unnecessary to be how it is today! So why accept it?
You could as well say: Oh in most cases it makes no difference if the other side has 3 heavies and 2 arties against us having only 1 heavy and no arty at all...

It would be preferable that the platoons were spread more evenly between the 2 sides. I am sure everyone has seen battles where one side has 2 players in a platoon while the other has 2 players not in a platoon. Likewise, platoons that play as separate players is also common, the flip side where the platoon plays as a unit is what most of us would expect to see & it is this that can impact a match when platoons aren't spread "evenly".

last night had a match against 4 platoons, in my team we had no platoons, we just covered the entrances to our base and they got hammered by us.
if you fight against platoons you will not allways lose. keep chatting with you,r team m8,s to make a good defence, trust me it works.

It's worrying trend because I'm even seeing it in the Level 1 and 2 battles now, especially with clan mates with matched tanks and, probably, voice comms and some practiced small unit tactics. Doesn't bother me too much, even when they're on the other side -- when we lose it's the chuffin' matchmaker to blame, when we win it's because I played like a god -- but what about the newer Tier 1 players?

Think about it -- you've just played your 10 matches in BL0, and think you're ready for the big, wide world. Then for the next dozen games you either 1) drive out, get swarmed by an enemy platoon or two, die; or 2) drive out, and watch your platoons swarm the enemy. You do very little, gain few xp/credits, don't have much fun, give up -- and the game has lost another player. And without the new players rising up the tiers the mid-levels will die out as everyone either moves up to the high tiers or stops playing because the matchmaker keeps putting them in BL8+ fights in its effort to fill rosters in a reasonable time frame. And all we are left with is a hard-core playing tier 10s and the Lowes to fund them...

Platoons used to get weighted heavier than non-platooned players in early closed beta. Didn't work out, even platooned most people are still campers with no coordination, and in addition they tend to lemming even more. Or, since so many platoons comprise tanks + artillery, they are probably not camping but "protecting the arty". Thus, with the weighting it was a disadvantage to have platoons in your team, and people complained for being penalized just for playing with their friends.

Therefore, these days the match-maker rightly ignores platoons.

PS: Balancing numbers of platoons wouldn't help you either, their platooned tier 10s vs your platooned suicide scouts is hardly balanced, and balancing platoons based on numbers, tiers and types is simply not a realistic option.

PS: Balancing numbers of platoons wouldn't help you either, their platooned tier 10s vs your platooned suicide scouts is hardly balanced, and balancing platoons based on numbers, tiers and types is simply not a realistic option.

It wouldn't hurt, either, and I'm not saying it should be exact. The balance never is, since modules, crew skills, player ability etc. aren't (currently) taken into account.

But to take an example from last night: 4 platoons on one side, including one made up of a T2MT and Cunningham. 1 platoon on the other, but 3 "solo" T2 MTs and a Cunningham. Swapping one platoon for two identical tanks wouldn't effect the balance of the teams and would make the start screen look a lot fairer to a new player.

OK, so not every difference would be that easy to resolve, but most of them are at BL1, 2 & 3, which is when new players will be deciding to carry on or quit.

Another, perhaps simpler, solution -- remove the lowest BL available when match-making a platoon, but weight as normal. Then you wouldn't get platooned Tier 2s in BL1, but the effect wouldn't be so noticeable for higher tiers.

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Thus, with the weighting it was a disadvantage to have platoons in your team, and people complained for being penalized just for playing with their friends.

My friends and I are just average players -- almost literally, since our weighted average win % is a tad under 49%. We've platooned in 400 or so battles, any 2 or 3 of us available, and tank choices have only extended to "same tier +/-1" while tactics have been no more than "left or right?". Yet when platooning we all have consistently higher damage ratios and kill counts, and a win rate 15% higher than usual.

A small number of battles to draw any meaningful conclusion from, true, but I thought it might of given some indication of the platooning effect. Perhaps not, in which case it is a non-problem and I'll shut up

I do not recall the actual weight that was put on platoons atm, but you can check the old beta forums for all the whines associated with the extra weight.

As to platooning, a good aggressive platoon usually gets around 8-12 kills per battle, meaning the other 12 people are just cannon fodder. However, the reason is not the platoon as such, but the fact that you have 3 good players in the same team. At the same time, there are enough platoons around that are quite useless, because platooning up doesn't automatically make you a better player. And unless you require a certain skill level to platoon up (lol), prevent people platooning their Maus with two loltraktors as you still see regularly, etc., weighting platoons will just cause the same issues it did in beta. IMHO anyway.